BanglaCricket member avoided Aftab because he looked like a Shibir brother from DU

Aftab is 19 or 21 but he is from Chittagong. Usually those like Aftab and Nafees who make into the National team or make an impression in the national league arena do not go to Dhaka Uni but trust me Shibir has a very strong hold in Chittagong Uni, Chittagong College and in leading schools like Chittagong Government High School.

I am not going to mention the name of our BanglaCricket forum member who spent an evening with Bangladesh team because we all know his name but it saddened me as he talked to everyone but when he saw Aftab he didn't want to talk to him because he reminded him of the shibir brothers from DU.

Anyway that comment hurt me little bit ... I could understand Aftab being ignored becuase he is a chittagongian and may be he didn't have good enough stats to impress our banglacricket forum member. But to accuse of something he is not, is not very pleasing.

Anyway Aftab's performance definitely proves that he can play though he wasn't as famous as Ashraful or Bashar.

Ashraful has never done well against Australia and England .... but Aftab has got 2 good scores ( 82 not out and 51 run out) and that's what pleases me most.

Obviously he will be challenged when he faces Mcgrath but I am confident that he will perform at least once against the Australians. The fact that he bats in the middle order helps a lot.

I think Nafees would have done well in the middle order. Opening against 2 of the best teams is not an easy task.

Why don't we open with Ashraful after all he is simply not good enough in the middle order but he may end up making 0 if he opens. So he is the major concern.

amim
Frankly I brought up the matter in another thread:http://www.banglacricket.com/alochon....php?tid=12086
where I said:
He is not only unpopular among some fans(?) but also some reporters. Do you remember an article by a respected member who went to the London Mayor's invitation for dinner with BD players. I was really curious then when he mentioned..
" could not wait for the speeches to be over so that I could have a chat with the players. Bangladeshi players are not really known for their conversational skills in a foreign land but nevertheless, I wanted to try. I first grabbed the lad from Narayanganj – our dear Mohammad Rafique. He looked very despondent and said he was ready for the action. However, his body language said the opposite. Then there was Ashraful – chirping away with everyone who was there. He was undoubtedly the most confident of the lot and was amazingly tiny and still managing to look like a school boy. There was Sumon and his ever present smile. He was very polite and mentioned that he was counting on our support at Lords. There was Aftab, the only “shoshrumondito”(bearded) player of the team. He looked very nervous. I don't know whether it was my recollection of the Shibir brothers of Dhaka University or if it was his nervousness, something put me off trying to have a chat with him. Mashrafe was bored out of his mind and was looking at a Bangla newspaper listlessly. Javed Omar was anxiously calling someone on the cell phone most of the evening. After my initial look at all of them, one thing that struck me was how young all these players were. They all were just kids. They have so much to grow. It was really refreshing to see the fresh but confident faces. I could literally feel the new found self belief in the team by being around them. The only old face of the team was of course that of Mr. Whatmore's. He literally looked like the father. Dav was making good use of the wine and was in a jovial mood"

I would have gone to the shy one to learn how is so brave in the field!

Is this your inspiration or do you think exactly alike at the same time?

HaHa! is our life so perfect that we have nothing else to worry about?

That author of the article was probably trying to be funny but I am sure Aftab doesn't give a hoot if someone didn't like his dari....and if aftab did remind the author of the Shibir - who cares.... it's perfectly normal.

I'd rather praise the writer's honesty on describing his inner feelings when he met with the BD team. This can be criticized (as we are doing now) and there must positive and negative side of criticism. I'm putting myself on the positives' side.

If shibir is what makes you move away from someone, there might some valid reason behind that, who knows! As Amin said: "I could understand Aftab being ignored becuase he is a chittagongian" - I beg to differ at this point. There was nothing mentioned like this and hence it is not true. Thanx.

What kind of thread is this ? I just read on cricinfo even Ricky Ponting said : Aftab is a shinning star of Bangladesh after his 82 not out in the test and 58 balls 51 against England . So , it's not fair to make jokes to our one of the best player !!!!!

Originally posted by ReckmyBack
What kind of thread is this ? I just read on cricinfo even Ricky Ponting said : Aftab is a shinning star of Bangladesh after his 82 not out in the test and 58 balls 51 against England . So , it's not fair to make jokes to our one of the best player !!!!!

The problem is we said the same think about Ashraful and Bashar (when he had a 50 average). What we are interested in is consistency, both from the players and from the BD fan in terms of praise and criticism.

So, before putting someone on pedastal and writing people off, we need to sit back and observe for a while.

Originally posted by nsd3
I'd rather praise the writer's honesty on describing his inner feelings when he met with the BD team. This can be criticized (as we are doing now) and there must positive and negative side of criticism. I'm putting myself on the positives' side.

If shibir is what makes you move away from someone, there might some valid reason behind that, who knows! As Amin said: "I could understand Aftab being ignored becuase he is a chittagongian" - I beg to differ at this point. There was nothing mentioned like this and hence it is not true. Thanx.

It's one thing to learn someone is (in this case falsely) accused of being shibir and another at profiling based on beard. This is outrageous! The author shouldn't receive criticism because as you said he was honest and he had doubts whether it was Aftab's shyness or his reluctance/fear that inspired him to not to interview him.

Speaking of Shibir, their presence on the DU campus was not that strong as say compared to CU, I don't actually recall coming across any there, religious types yes but Shibir no. It may have been because I was not a resident of the halls.

Aftab Ahmed shouldnt be linked with Shibir coz we are talking of cricket here. We shouldnt link ny player with politics coz Bangladesh politics is really bad. We should demand politics free sports everywhere in BD. BanglaCricket members shouldnt think of Aftab like that. I am saying that coz its just not good we accuse or avoid our own players when other nation players dont.